Clarence Thomas in 1992.Larry Downing/Sygma/Sygma through Getty Photographs
In 1980, 32-year-old Clarence Thomas was a no-name aide to a Republican senator.
At a convention for Black conservatives, he complained to a journalist about his sister being on welfare.
The journalist, Juan Williams, wrote a column about it that caught the eye of Reagan’s staff.
Lengthy earlier than Supreme Courtroom Justice Clarence Thomas made headlines for his monetary dealings, he made the information for a completely totally different cause — complaining to a journalist about his sister being on welfare.
The story is recounted in a brand new episode of the WNYC podcast “Extra Good,” which focuses on the Supreme Courtroom and its influential rulings. The most recent episode, launched Thursday, is all about Thomas, telling the story of how he went from a Malcolm X-admiring revolutionary to arguably essentially the most conservative justice on the excessive court docket.
In 1980, 32-year-old Thomas was working as an aide to Republican Sen. John Danforth of Missouri, primarily engaged on points like vitality and the atmosphere, in keeping with a 1987 profile revealed in The Atlantic and written by Juan Williams, now a Fox Information analyst.
In December of that 12 months, a couple of month earlier than Ronald Reagan was to be sworn in as president, Thomas paid his personal technique to attend a convention of Black conservatives in San Francisco. After Reagan sailed to victory within the election with little help from Black voters, Black conservatives had been more and more being mentioned within the media, Williams wrote in The Atlantic.
Thomas, a Reagan supporter, was not well-known. However on the convention, he caught out to Williams, who on the time was an editorial author for The Washington Publish.
“Thomas was essentially the most attention-grabbing of a really self-important crowd as a result of he was so brutally candid,” Williams wrote in The Atlantic, including that Thomas defined his stance on welfare — and his opposition to public help — was partially as a consequence of his sister in Georgia.
“She will get mad when the mailman is late along with her welfare test,” Thomas stated, in keeping with Williams. “That’s how dependent she is. What’s worse is that now her youngsters really feel entitled to the test too. They haven’t any motivation for doing higher or getting out of that scenario.”
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Such sentiments will not be unusual right now in arguments about welfare packages, however Thomas’s remarks and the point out of his sister brought on fairly a stir, Williams recounted on the “Extra Good” podcast. His feedback had been additionally according to Reagan’s personal marketing campaign tirades towards the welfare system and “welfare queens” — by which he used particular person examples of welfare fraud to color it as a rampant problem. In actuality, there’s little proof indicating there’s widespread fraud in entitlement packages.
Williams ended up writing a column concerning the convention that largely centered on Thomas and his remarks.
“He had by no means been topic to that form of media highlight,” Williams stated of Thomas. “The response from most readers of The Washington Publish was, ‘Wow, this man’s out of his thoughts. Why is he citing his sister? Why is he placing her in that ugly public place?'”
Whereas Thomas’s feedback outraged liberals, in addition they caught the eye of President-elect Reagan’s staff. In Might of 1981, Thomas joined the Reagan White Home because the assistant secretary for civil rights within the Division of Training. He went on to chair the Equal Employment Alternative Fee from 1982 to 1990. And in 1991, President George H. W. Bush appointed him to the lifetime place of Supreme Courtroom justice.
Reagan ended up making large cuts to welfare packages and permitting states to institute work necessities for welfare recipients.
Regardless of the chain of occasions that adopted, Thomas was sad with the column, and particularly with the general public response, Williams stated, including that it took six months earlier than Thomas would speak to him once more. When the pair lastly met up for lunch, Thomas acted like Williams had damage him.
“I am like, ‘However I simply quoted you. Dude, that is what you informed me.’ And he retains repeating the identical stuff anyway,” Williams stated, including their relationship received again on monitor after that.
Williams, who has stated he considers Thomas a buddy, just lately referred to as for an investigation into the justice’s monetary dealings within the wake of quite a few media experiences.
ProPublica first reported that Thomas had taken undisclosed, lavish holidays for years on the expense of GOP megadonor Harlan Crow. Subsequent experiences revealed Thomas did not disclose the sale of his childhood house to Crow, and that Crow paid for Thomas’s grandnephew to attend a residential program for teenagers that value $6,000 monthly.
Thomas has denied any wrongdoing and stated he believed the presents fell below a “private hospitality” exemption.
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